An easier start to the season has given West Ham the confidence they need to take three points against Southampton, according to Sam Allardyce.
The club's loss to Arsenal earlier this month was their first league defeat at Upton Park this season, but despite that, Allardyce believes there's a good feeling in the rooms.
"We've coped with the Barclays Premier League very well over the start of our season, also I think we had a group of fixtures that were less challenging than Southampton's," he said. "We were disappointed by Arsenal, but our confidence, particularly here at home is very very high and I hope we can see the same level of performance that I've seen, particularly against Sunderland, Fulham, and Aston Villa at the start of the season.
"If we can hit that level of form, I think we'll get opportunities to win the game.
" Those opportunities may come from set plays, which Allardyce cautiously noted were working out well for the Irons this season. "Clearly one of [Southampton's] strengths is set plays and I don't want to jump the gun, but one of our strengths this year is not conceding from set plays as well as scoring from them," he said. "We'll have to try and maintain that level and if we cut that side of it out for Southampton then we obviously limit their percentages of chances of scoring a goal, because they've been good at it." Which is the pivotal point, as Allardyce knows how quickly a game can turn if you don't have strength in both defence and attack.
"There's two ways of playing the game. You play the game when you're in possession and you play the game when out of it," he explained. "If you don't get both right, you don't win. "Certainly your first year in the Premier League, what you do out of possession is just as important as what you do in. You've got to get those two critical points on an equal par if you can.
"If you can do that, particularly defensively, even though Southampton haven't found it that difficult, they've scored 12 goals in seven games, but they've gone out to score those 12 goals and left gaps that have been exploited.
"We suffered the same problem against Arsenal two weeks ago, because when we got better in possession in the game, in the second half particularly, they hit us on the break and smashed us a couple of times and they ended up winning 3-1.
"Whereas in the balance as it was looking with only 10 minutes to go at 1-1, we might have got something out of it then all of a sudden..." Allardyce will shake up his back line for this weekend's match with Winston Reid (back) and Guy Demel (thigh) both unlikely to be fit, while the loss of striker Ricardo Vaz Te poses a challenge up front.
"There's more than one replacement needed. It's about testing of the squad now. It's a squad with our injuries is stretched more than any other time this season," he said.
Source: team_talk
